Robert Kraft’s Other Problem: Soccer

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Robert Ok. Kraft’s New England Patriots are an excellent soccer workforce, successful six Super Bowl championships the previous 19 years. They are 33-5 towards the A.F.C. East division rival Buffalo Bills throughout that span.

In a merciless accident, Robert Kraft’s different workforce that performs at Gillette Stadium, the New England Revolution, may as nicely be the Buffalo Bills of Major League Soccer. There was a run of dominance — 4 M.L.S. Cup Finals appearances in six years — with no championship, and a largely fallow interval now happening a decade. The workforce is under .500 (125-148-89) since 2008, the yr after they went to a few straight M.L.S. Cup Finals.

Kraft has greater issues in the mean time than the Revolution. He is going through two misdemeanor expenses of soliciting prostitution at a therapeutic massage parlor in Jupiter, Fla. (Kraft denies criminality.) Kraft most certainly gained’t face jail time, however the expenses may end in a fantastic or a suspension or each from the National Football League, the place he has turn into probably the most highly effective house owners, and from Major League Soccer, the place he additionally enjoys a protracted, shut relationship together with his commissioner.

If his consideration turns again to his soccer workforce, he’s more likely to discover a home in the course of a serious overhaul.

Brandon Bye of the Revolution heading a ball throughout the house opener towards the Columbus Crew.CreditAdam Glanzman for The New York Times

“One of our methods final yr was to instill a brand new tradition on the membership,” mentioned Brad Friedel, the previous United States nationwide workforce goalkeeper employed to show across the workforce final yr. He mentioned a tear down was essential. “We felt that there wanted to be a totally totally different work ethic.”

Friedel spoke earlier than the Revolution’s house opener final weekend, a 2-Zero loss to the Columbus Crew. He praised his workforce’s current signings, however he didn’t hesitate to criticize the workforce he took over. “We wanted leaders,” he mentioned. “We didn’t have lots of leaders final yr.”

There is not any Tom Brady right here.

The Revolution started play in 1996, as one among Major League Soccer’s unique 10 groups. Kraft, alongside Lamar Hunt and Philip Anschutz, recruited Don Garber from the N.F.L. to be the league’s commissioner, and that tight group helped preserve M.L.S. afloat within the early 2000s, when it was on the snapping point.

But whereas Kraft has been capable of grasp the N.F.L., the soccer revolution in America has largely handed him by.

Photographs of Robert Kraft’s different workforce line a wall of the places of work at Gillette Stadium.CreditAdam Glanzman for The New York Times

The Revolution are one among three M.L.S. groups to nonetheless play in a cavernous soccer stadium. The two others, Atlanta United and the Seattle Sounders, justify it by drawing the most important common attendances within the league, however solely 13,808 followers confirmed up for the Revolution’s house opener final weekend. The Revolution will draw higher when there isn’t snow on the bottom, after all, however final yr’s common attendance ranked 16th within the league.

The workforce has been attempting to construct a soccer particular stadium someplace within the Boston space since 2006. In the 13 years since, websites have been mooted, hundreds of thousands have been spent on architectural renderings and plots of land have virtually been bought, all to finally collapse for one motive or one other. A brand new multimillion-dollar coaching facility will open this season, however that, too, can be in Foxborough, even because the Boston stadium search goes on.

“It’s about getting right into a stadium that may rework soccer in our area,” the workforce president Brian Bilello mentioned. “With that in thoughts, we’ve got been affected person, in all probability to a fault, to attempt to get the correct challenge performed.”

In Garber’s thoughts, many of the Revolution’s issues can be mounted by a brand new stadium. “My view is their financial mannequin is difficult in Gillette,” he mentioned. “It has not been capable of faucet into the younger, millennial sports activities fan within the Boston metropolitan space as a result of it’s additional away.”

“One of our methods final yr was to instill a brand new tradition on the membership,” mentioned Brad Friedel, the previous United States nationwide workforce goalkeeper who’s in his second season because the Revolution coach.CreditAdam Glanzman for The New York Times

The couple hundred die-hard Revolution followers tailgating within the parking zone earlier than the house opener weren’t so positive. The stadium search has gone on for thus lengthy that they not often get their hope up anymore. Various them mentioned that it feels as if the Revolution are a distant precedence for the Krafts.

Both Bilello and Garber deny that’s the case. Still, the N.F.L. is a $15 billion-a-year league, and a social, monetary and cultural presence far greater than M.L.S. Kraft sits on among the N.F.L.’s strongest committees. His son, Jonathan Kraft, holds these roles on M.L.S. committees, and appears to deal with many of the workforce’s day-to-day enterprise.

Last yr, the Krafts spent $20 million to purchase their third workforce, the Boston Uprising, an e-sports workforce that competes within the Overwatch League. The sardonic joke amongst some Revolution supporters is that now they’re not even the uncared for second youngster, however one thing even worse: the ignored center youngster.

The workforce declined to make both Robert or Jonathan Kraft accessible for this text.

Over the years, the Revolution have dabbled in signing higher-priced gamers, however none have proved a very giant draw or game-changing addition on the sector. The workforce now desires to offer younger homegrown gamers, like Isaac Angking, Nicolas Firmino and Justin Rennicks, an actual pathway to first workforce minutes and success.

A sometimes sparse crowd confirmed up for the New England Revolution’s house opener final week at Gillette Stadium, one among solely three N.F.L. stadiums utilized by an M.L.S. workforce. The Revolution have been attempting for years to construct a stadium within the Boston space that will be tailor-made for soccer.CreditAdam Glanzman for The New York Times

This low season, the workforce additionally acquired Carles Gil, a Spanish midfielder Friedel hopes will jump-start the assault, together with different gamers who determine to make an impression like Edgar Castillo and Juan Fernando Caicedo. Bilello mentioned the workforce’s spending on gamers had been ramping up, and that the Krafts are giving the workforce all the cash they should compete; each Bilello and Friedel promised one other designated participant — the league’s highest wage classification — would arrive in both May or July, as soon as contractual points may be labored out. They wouldn’t reveal the participant’s identification.

The workforce can also be constructing a brand new $35 million coaching middle adjoining to Gillette Stadium that may home each the primary workforce and the academy. The facility will function quite a lot of grass and synthetic turf coaching pitches — the workforce’s present coaching pitch is roofed in snow, so it has been practising at Gillette Stadium — and the state-of-the-art services that, they hope, will assist persuade new gamers to hitch.

Soccer is soccer, although, and constructing a successful workforce is usually the identical the world over. The factor that makes M.L.S. distinctive, in response to Friedel, who spent practically twenty years enjoying in England and different high European leagues, is that it’s continually evolving.

“Whether there’s a new rule, a brand new stadium, a brand new coaching floor, different new designated gamers, a brand new membership, a brand new franchise, a brand new second division, a brand new third division,” he mentioned, ticking off the listing of potentialities, “all these items occurred on this nation as a result of the league is rising.”

The final 4 M.L.S. Cups have been gained by groups that weren’t unique league members, and the previous few years have witnessed a gradual growth of the league. When M.L.S. followers consider probably the most thrilling groups now, they’re usually considering of vivid new groups with vivid new stadiums with vivid younger stars, golf equipment like Atlanta United and Los Angeles F.C.

“At instances it’s simpler to be new, and it’s simpler to be a brand new and improved, than it’s to be a legacy enterprise,” Garber mentioned.